About

I don’t have anything to give you, so I’ll sing you X (Japanese: 何もあげられるもの無いから○○を歌うよ) refers to a series of MAD videos on the video-sharing website Nico Nico Douga (NND). The videos consist of typically parodying a short footage from the anime Kiniro Mosaic.[1]

Origin

The fourth episode of the anime Kiniro Mosaic, which was produced by Studio Gokumi, was originally aired in Japan on July 27th, 2013. In the used footage, which can be found after the intro, the characters Aya Komichi and Yoko Inokuma remembered Shinobu Omiya’s birthday and gave her gifts. Alice Cartelet realized she couldn’t give her an object as a gift, so she sang the song “Happy Birthday” in Japanese. At the end, Shinobu is asking desperately to Alice why she didn’t sing the song normally in English.

Spread

On August 1st, 2013, NND user Kassu Bucho (カッス部長)[2] created and uploaded a MAD video titled "Alice “I don’t have anything to give you, so I’ll sing you FLOWER”", featuring the BEMANI song FLOWER created by Yoshitaka Nishimura under the alias DJ YOSHITAKA (shown below, left). Four days later, NND user Kotatsu-gata Senpuki (こたつ型扇風機)[3] made a video response to the MAD video titling it "Alice “I don’t have anything to give you, so I’ll sing you Evans” instead." using the song Evans. which was produced by the same artist. The user was the first, who figured out the exploitability (shown below, right).

After then, following videos featuring the adorable footage filled with Moe and cuteness are called with the phrasal template "Alice “I don’t have anything to give you. So I’ll sing you X (instead).”". The fad of this series is to run the footage for 30 seconds before remixing it for humorous effect, which is similar to the Whisky Zen fad and the YouTube Poop fad No Man.

As of August 18th, 2013, the amount of videos under the tag “何もあげられるもの無いから○○を歌うよ” has risen over 150 search results on NND.[4]